


I will not ask you and neither would you

by Lea12



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Slight Age Difference, both Kai and Hope are a bit ooc, is it canon or are they human? I don't know you decide, the pairing could be read as platonic if you decide not to read the last part, they've seen some shit you would be different from canon too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22829632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lea12/pseuds/Lea12
Summary: Having someone else by her side while she travels could prove to be useful and a very good idea. Despite how much his grin makes her want to shoot him on the spot.Despite how much something magnetic is pulling her towards him.or, Kai and Hope find each other in a zombie apocalypse
Relationships: Malachai "Kai" Parker & Hope Mikaelson, Malachai "Kai" Parker/Hope Mikaelson, referenced Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore, referenced Hope Mikaelson & Josie Saltzman, referenced Hope Mikaelson & Josie Saltzman & Lizzie Saltzman, referenced Hope Mikaelson & Lizzie Saltzman
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	1. I will not ask you and neither would you

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on lyrics of Like Real People Do by Hozier.  
> Also, kudos to those who find another Hozier reference.  
> Before you go ahead and read, clear your head, clear your thoughts, forget about what happened in canon and just...dive into reading. Trust me, I know why I'm telling you this.  
> 

_Zombie apocalypse outbreaks._ _It's a virus, an epidemic and it crosses continents in a a matter of days, less than a week, so there's no safe place to hide, to go, to ran away to._ _It starts in the USA. Of course it does. It happens in New York, first. Then it spreads all over the country, all over the continent, across the ocean, and it's soon all over the planet._

_When the words of the virus outbreak come, she's in Salvatore's, while her family is all over the country (or ocean, she's uncertain)._   
_She goes to New Orleans, they're supposed to meet there, it's a safe place, it's home of the Mikaelsons, they'll be safe there._

_But New Orleans is caught by the virus too, but as she's halfway there, she decides to continue down her route, to her destination. By the the time she comes, the once beautiful city (her city) is ruined, ran by zombies and her family is nowhere near found._

_She searches every inch of the city, but she doesn't find any remnants of her family. She can't reach them either._   
_So she travels back to Mystic Falls, back to Salvatore's._

_The safest places are the small towns, she has found out during her journey._   
_She kills so many of those already dead. But they don't really die. It seems like they can't die._   
_Kind of like her family (but even some Mikaelsons are dead, aren't they?)._

_By the time she returns, Salvatore's has become the sanctuary for the survivors of the Mystic Falls._   
_Jeremy Gilbert is there. Bonnie Bennett is there too. Sheriff Donovan. Valerie Tulle is there as well, somehow._   
_Professor Saltzman, Caroline, Josie and Lizzie. The rest of student body and faculty members._

_Damon and Elena die. They're turned into zombies and they die._ _Their children are kept safe in Salvatore's._

_Together, they all protect the school from zombies._   
_There's a set of rules._   
_Believe it or not, she follows them. She finally follows the rules and all it took is a zombie apocalypse._

_The atmosphere in Salvatore's is..._   
_It's dark, uneasy, unsettling and so many more adjectives she won't bother listing._

_Too many of the survivors don't keep their name, a survivor._   
_Far too many._

_She keeps trying to contact her family, anyone, but no use._   
_She keeps to herself, not really talking to anyone She mostly paints. It helps with keeping her mind off everything._

_Not that anyone actually talks with each other much, either._

_She gets a call from Kansas, she can't pick it up (no signal), and she concludes it must be her family._   
_She dreams about her family, dreams about Kansas City and her family in it, calling her, searching for her. Something like a magnet is pulling her towards Kansas City, like a call from the destiny._

_She makes the plan, takes the ammo and packs up her bags, finds an atlas with all the roads mapped out and runs away from Salvatore's._   
_She doesn't tell anyone, doesn't even say goodbye, but she does leave a note saying how she's gone to look for her family._

_She goes alone on the search for her family. Mikaelsons don't need help, they're each others's help._

_She breaks into the houses, learns how to sleep during the nights with one eye open._  
 _She kills the zombies, comes close one far too many times for her liking, so she changes the route._  
 _It's safer to go to the route to Chicago, there's probably survivors there (it is_ _Chicago), and from there on, she'll continue onto Kansas City._

_It's lonely._   
_Driving, breaking in, nights spent alone..._   
_It's so incredibly lonely, and she's alone with her thoughts._

_But she does get to read so many books, from autobiographies to erotica. Books help, with the thinking and rethinking._  
 _She's been lonely so many times before, but this,_ _this is something else entirely._

_She doesn't want to think about the dead. She can't._   
_She can, she's not heartless, she never was, despite what -_   
_She keeps her mind occupied with surviving and surviving and surviving-_

_She's a Mikaelson and a Labonair through and through, she has survival coursing through her blood and it's cut into her bones._   
_So she has no doubt her family survived too._   
_It's the only thing that keeps her going._

_Strangely, she thought about suicide couple of times before, and now, now that she's got nothing, it barely crosses her mind._

_She's alone, but she survived. If she survived, then so did her family, so did others._  
 _She doesn't let herself think of another option._ _Because it's not an option._

  
_So she reads, drives and breaks into houses when she runs out of supplies or feels the sleep creeping onto her._

_She comes to Chicago._   
_After twenty-something days, she finally reaches the bloody Chicago-_   
_and bloody it is. The rotten smell of death and bodies and zombies is in thick in the air._   
_She doesn't get the signal anywhere. So she raids the houses instead._

_It's a pretty house. She likes the interior. The owners were loaded. She finds pretty jewelry, designer clothes, expensive cutlery._   
_She doesn't let herself to look at the photos. She's had time to practice it, and now, she barely even notices the faces. It's easier that way._   
_She also like the car very, very much. The gas tank is full, too._   
_She raids other houses in the neighborhood, packs up ten bags, puts them in the car._   
_She takes a shower in the pretty, luxurious bathroom, enjoying the feel of cleansing of expensive soap._

_She puts on the pretty clothes of the daughter of the owners, who was exactly her size and goes back to the pretty car._

  
_She starts the engine, when she feels a hand clasp her mouth and a cold, sharp metal against her neck and she lets out a scream, but the hand is muffling her screams. She tries to wiggle, but the metal (knife, it's a knife) grazes her skin and so she stops, staying frozen, staying numb._

"Good girl. You catch on quickly, don't you?" She hears a voice, voice belonging to a young man. She looks into the rear-view mirror and sees a handsome, black haired young man, with a grin on his face. "I'll let you go, if you promise not to scream. Understood?"  
She slowly nods and he lets her go.

_It's a moment of silence, she's in shock - she hasn't spoken to another human being in weeks, a human being who just nearly cut her throat-_

"I didn't know there are other survivors in this area." He speaks up. He's looking at her, eyes narrowed, analyzing, trying to figure out who she is and how she survived.

"There aren't. I'm not from around here." She says, defiant and bold, but still cautious, hands at the steering wheel, knuckles white, looking at him into the mirror.

"Where are you from, then?" There's a hint of an amusement on his face.

"Look, there's a lot of other cars you can take, alright? I'll even tell you the address of this one survivor camp, and we can both go on our merry ways."

"What if I like being alone?" He asks, tone low, teasing her.

"Take the bags, I have more than enough." She sounds as if she's pleading him and that catches his interest.

"What's the hurry?" He asks, eyes lingering over her.

"I just... I'm on a tight schedule, and I'm already way late-" _god, she sounds so weak, her father would be disappointed-_

"I got no plans, no final destination." His voice lingers and he's proposing to team up, he's offering her his help.

"I don't need your help." She's getting angry and he notices, despite her best efforts, and his grin grows wider.

"I'm not offering you my help. It's a long way down-", he looks to the map, sees the circled Kansas City and raises an eyebrow, "-to Kansas City? Especially if you plan on passing through Naperville. I know my way around this area, I'd gladly lead you through it. You can't go through that war zone alone."

"I'll manage. But thanks."

"Alright, have it your way. Sorry for trying to help a damsel in distress." She scrunches her nose at that, her bile pulsing and her aggravation turns anger, which he notices and changes the subject. 

"What's in Kansas City, little red?" He asks, curious.

"None of your concern. Now get out of my car." She shrugs him off instead of answering.

"Alright. Have it your way." He shrugs nonchalantly. "Interesting book, by the way." He notes with that grin of his, as well as a wink, as he gets out of the car.

_She starts the car, not giving him a second look, and drives away._

_She drives for...maybe half an hour, when there's a horde of zombies ambushing her, tearing the pretty car apart, screaming so loudly that her head might explode._   
_She kills half of the them, more than it is unnecessary or needed to drive through the horde._

_Her pretty, new clothes are ruined, now dirty with their blood and their virus._   
_She sighs, drives to the nearest house to change clothes to burn her new pretty, pretty clothes._

_It seems quiet enough, so she comes in, doesn't even bother checking other rooms and goes straight to the shower._   
_She takes the other clothes from the bag, goes into the bedroom, thinking how she could use some more pretty clothes-_

_She finds a woman, a zombie woman (it's just a zombie now, remember) infected with a virus, and she goes in for a scream, but the hand that clasps her mouth muffles the screams and the woman is shot dead._ _She goes in for another scream, but that hand is still muffling her screams-_

"Goddamn it, red, do you know anything else than to scream?" The voice is familiar, the hand is familiar too, and so she turns around, finding herself face to face with him. 

"You killed her." She states, voice low and hoarse from screaming.

"You're welcome." He replies, sarcastic.

"She wasn't going to hurt me." Her voice is cracking, although she's trying to control it-

"Yes, she was. They're zombies. Infecting others is their only goal. So, you're welcome, little red. By the way, I saw what you did to those on the road. You aren't a saint."

"Then you know I can take care of myself." He gives her a look and goes into the bedroom, searching through the wardrobe and the nightstand. She turns around, realizing what he said. "Did you follow me?"

"Yes. I knew you'd end up dead without my help, so I decided to be a gentleman and help you out."

"Yeah, a creepy stalker being a gentleman. I'm so thankful." Her voice doesn't come across as sarcastic as much as she wanted it to, considering she's still swallowing her tears, she's still trembling and in shock.

"I just thought it'd be a shame for human race to lose yet another member to zombies." He says as he finds a lighter and tries it, seeing if it works.

"How noble."

"The path from here is a bit clearer. I won't come to save you anymore if you don't want me to." He's being cheeky and if it were any other day, any other time, she'd flirt, but right now, she needs to find and go back to her family.

"Then goodbye." She says and walks out of the bedroom. He goes out and she can hear him flipping the lighter.

She looks at him from inside. He has headphones and he's dancing around the fire. She'd laugh at him, if she wasn't- _no Hope, not now-_

_Having someone by her side while she travels could prove to be useful and a very good idea, despite how much his grin makes her want to shoot him on the spot._

_Despite how much something magnetic is pulling her towards him._

_She changes into new clothes, comes outside and sees him reading her book while singing softly along the music from his player._

"Alright, I'll do it." Her voice snaps him out of reading and he looks up from the book, eyebrows raised and the look he has has her infuriated. He plans on teasing and getting a rise out of her, the cheeky bastard.

"Do what?" He asks, a playful, innocent grin on his face.

"I'll team up with you. Until we come to Kansas City, then we go our separate ways. Deal?" He closes the book, grin growing wider and he shakes her hand.

"Deal." He says, sending her a wink and goes to the driver's seat.

"Oh no you don't. I'm the driver." She says and he sends her a seriously look.

"Fine. I call shotgun then."  
 _They drive for three hours when they reach another horde._  
 _He's been talking non-stop, literally, he didn't keep his mouth shot for more than a minute and she decides she'll stick to her original plan._

  
_She doesn't need company if it means he'll keep asking her stupid, meaningless questions and pry into her privacy._

_This is zombie apocalypse, you don't make friends here._

_So when they reach the horde, she decides to leave him alone to fend for himself._   
_And what she decides, she does, she does it like a Mikaelson._

_She helps him kill three zombies (hey, she's not that heartless, alright?), than she gets into the car, starts it and leaves him behind before he even realizes what has just happened._

_She feels bad, yes, horribly, horribly bad for leaving him alone, but he can take care of himself, she's seen what he's capable of, so she's not worried. Just... feeling a bit bad, that's all._

_She finally drives in silence, in peace, for an hour, before she reaches the old gas station._   
_She fills up the gas tank (better safe than sorry), goes to the toilet and into the store._

_Something feels off about the story and she has her hand ready on the gun. She searches it, thoroughly, but finds nothing, nobody. But the feeling that somebody is watching her doesn't go away._

  
_She picks up a chocolate bar and walks outside, when she's frozen in her step by a gun cocking at her head._

"You thought you'd get rid of me so easily, huh, little red?" He asks, taking the chocolate bar out of her hand but still not moving the gun pointed at her head.

"You were getting annoying."

"I was trying to make conversation, getting to know you. Isn't that what real people do?"

"We're in a zombie apocalypse. Real people rules don't apply anymore." He scoffs at that, taking a bite of her chocolate bar.

"Honestly, little red, I was a little disappointed in the way you left me. I thought we were making a connection."

"Get that gun away from my head and I'll show you a connection." Her tone is harsh and he wolf-whistles, amused.

"Aren't you just the perfect stereotype feisty redhead, huh? But I'm thinking something along the way, you apologize, beg me for forgiveness on your knees and let me drive for the whole trip." Now it's her time to scoff. "I'm not joking now, red."

She looks him in the eyes, and she recognizes the look. It's the same as hers.So she takes a deep breath and nods. "Fine. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. A bit louder, please?"

She glares at him, speaking loud and angry. "I said, I'm sorry to leave you out there alone and I beg you to forgive me."

"Oh, well thank you. Apology accepted. Now the other part?" She rolls her eyes.

"I'll let you drive the whole trip. Good?" 

He shrugs. "Satisfying. You could've at least kneeled." He says, putting the gun away and she reconsiders punching him, but decides against it.

"You would've loved that, wouldn't you?"

"You have no idea, little red." His grin is wide and she gets another wink and she might have chuckled at that. Might have a bit chuckled. Might _(yes she did)._

_They drive for three hours. He drives her car for three hours._   
_The magnetic pull towards Kansas City, that feeling in her gut, doesn't leave her, but it's a bit different now._

_They finally reach it, she finally comes to Kansas City, but it's nothing._   
_It's like any other city before, like a wasteland._

"It's a wasteland, baby. I gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed. You?" They're standing outside the car and she's trying to figure it out-

_Was she wrong? Was her intuition wrong? Was she so stupid, so naive to think her family would call and survive?_

_She feels herself breaking down inside and outside, but pulls herself together, at least outside._   
_She takes deep breaths, not daring to look at him, just... starring at the distance._

"We could raid the houses. Figure out where to go next. What do you say, red?"

"Sure." She knows he notices how she's breaking down, but he doesn't mention it.

"Chin up, little red, you're gonna love going on all the road trips with me."

"Yeah." She swallows the lump in her throat and nods, offering him a forced smile.

They drive through the city, and they pass the hotel, and she gets this déjà vu.

They come into the hotel, raid the rooms, but she finds nothing. _Nothing._  
 _Shit._

They go back to the car and he's driving it, while she's looking through the window, _thinking and thinking and rethinking and crying inside herself._

"Where to now, princess?" She barely hears him ask.

"Anywhere but here." She answers and he nods.

"Yeah, good call. Let's road trip this wasteland country, huh? What do you say about that, red?"

"It sounds like a good idea."

"Duh. Of course it does, it came from me. I'm the king of good ideas." She's not sure why, but it makes her chuckle.

_They fall into silence, well, she falls into silence, he's the one singing animatedly to the CD in the car._  
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about whatever you were expecting to find in there."

"Thanks." _Another ABBA song comes and he exclaims that he loves this song so much (which he said for every other song of theirs) and he gets her to sing the stupid song with him._

_They drive through Wyoming, stopping at a small town to sleep._

_She cries herself to sleep that night, her silent, choking cries mixing with the screams of the zombies and his soft snoring._  
 _They continue through Idaho and Utah. He tells her to help him follow the roads in the atlas for Portland._  
"Portland, Oregon? What's there?" There's something dark in his look, a word left unsaid, before it's replaced by his playful smirk.

"We'll just have to see, won't we?" She offers him a short, lazy smile, letting the subject go.

_It's not as if she has anywhere else to be, right? What is she going to do, go back to Mystic Falls, where everybody else is probably dead by now?_   
_They come to Oregon and they have to stay over for a night before they can come to Portland._   
_Night is over, then it's another day, and they pick their bags and walk into the sunlight, towards a new place and new houses and apartments to break into._   
_They aren't going to nowhere specific, not really, not with a goal, they're just... walking aimlessly, trying to survive._   
  
_They reach Portland and something in the air shifts. She can't explain it, but..._   
_He's different when they come to Portland. He drives them to the field and she can see a house._   
_She looks at him questioningly._

"We'll be safe here for some time, until we can reach other survivors." He gets out of the car and goes into the house.

She walks after him, taking in everything about it. She notices how familiar he is with this house, and she sees a photo of a young teen who looks like him.

_This was his home, once upon a time._

  
_They organize who's going to clean which part of the house, and when they're done, they each go into their rooms._   
_She's not sure which room she got, whose room, which sibling of his did it belong to before the apocalypse?_   
_In the morning, she's woken up by the sound of cooking, music and an appetizing smell of eggs and bacon._

  
_She walks down the stairs and finds him cooking and dancing._   
_They eat breakfast together, then they go their separate way before it's time to cook lunch._   
_They cook together._

  
_It helps her forget where and why they're actually here._  
 _She cleans some more, cleans up other bedrooms, because it helps her keep her mind of everything._ _By the time night comes, she has found old board games, so they choose Monopoly. She wins._

_Again and again and again and-_   
_She doesn't know how long they stay in that house, how long they've been in his house._

_She notices he eats jam with his fingers. What kind of a sociopath does that?_   
_He can kill as much as humans and zombies as he wants, fine, okay, she's done it too, by now, it's not a sign of being a bad person (her moral compass broke a long time ago)._   
_But eating jam with his fingers? That's where she draws the line._

_She also notices that he reminds her of her father._   
_She's not really sure why, and how she came to comparing those two, but now it's in her mind and she can't wipe it out._

_Living with him, (god, who knew she'd ever live with a guy in a house in a field), it's... It's okay. It would probably be a nicer experience if they didn't live in an apocalyptic world, but..._   
_Some days it's good, some days it's for worse._

_They both carry their own demons, their own problems and thoughts and it's not as if seeing each other every single day is helping with not annoying each other._

_But overall, it's okay. Way better than it would be to be alone._   
_At least with him by her side, she isn't losing her mind and crying all the time._

_He's fun. He's fun and so it's way better than what she would do by herself._   
_Few times, they hotwired cars and Fast and Furios-ed the highway. She enjoyed it way too much._   
_Living with him is okay._   
_The days are okay._

  
  
_Nights, she thinks, are the worst._   
_There's either silence (like in his house) or the footsteps and screams of the dead (like in the houses she used to spend the nights)._   
_She's not sure which one she prefers._   
_Silence is suspicious and it give you a false sense of security and normality. It offers you thinking, your imagination starts working and that's not a good idea, especially not in these times._

_Your mind goes everywhere, to the good and bad and horrible and sad places, which makes you go mad._   
_Noise is good, in the way that it doesn't let you forget why you are where you are, what is actually happening._   
_Noise keeps you on your toes._   
_Noise makes you ready to fight, ready for action, which is a matter of the uttermost importance._

_Noise doesn't give you time to think. You're focused on the sounds, focused on figuring out how close the zombies are to where you're hiding._

_She keeps beating him in Monopoly, it's getting a bit sad, more than funny._   
_She lets him win once and he doesn't let her forget it._   
_So they switch to puzzles. Nobody could possibly get angry doing puzzles, right?_

_They watch sunsets and sunrises together. Or sometimes, they stargaze (when they're feeling reckless, because even at the field, despite how safe this house might be, zombies are getting hungrier and hungrier each passing day)._

_Mostly they do it in silence._

They're watching the sunset this time, when she decides to break the silence.

"This feels like prison." She shares her observation with him. He doesn't say anything, but his face falls into a slow question. "You can't go outside much, without somebody looking to hurt you, you're keeping to yourself or finding the group who could protect you. Like prison."  
She elaborates and he still doesn't say anything, but he looks into the distance, contemplative, not saying anything. It's an odd moment, which passes, after a long silence.

"It's not like prison." It's all he says, something somber in the way he says those words is what makes her heart drop.

"You were in prison?" She asks and she's taken aback by that. She looks at him, trying to notice the signs of a criminal, but he catches her eyes with his and all the thoughts she had go away.

"It's not the kind of prison you think of." He says, tone low and solemn, his eyes looking somewhere else, as if he's caught into a distant memory.

She sits there, at the porch, looking at him, her eyes wondering over him, trying to really look at him. He's starring into the distance, arms loosely crossed, wind going through his hair.

He's young, she realizes. He's incredibly young. She knew he must've been in his twenties, but she thought, probably mid to late. But he couldn't be more than twenty-two.

But his eyes are dark. His eyes are all kinds of wrong and right, sad and bad and good and misunderstood and regretful and they're so, so incredibly scary to look into sometimes _(there's two reasons why it's so scary, and it's for different reasons)._

He is also incredibly handsome. She knew that too, but looking at him like this, _really looking at him_ , with sun falling down and the way it hits him, making him even more handsome-

He'd be the perfect model to photograph, standing like that, the whole aesthetic, with the sun and his look and him, and she smiles at that, she might even let out a quick chuckle –  
 _because her mind went to Kai and professional photo-shoot and it's such a funny thing to imagine, because can you? Well she did and it's hilarious._

_They watch the dawn together, not talking, both lost deep into their thoughts._   
_It's a beautiful dawn, and she's unable to stop herself from her thoughts wandering to her family._   
_Her father would probably want to capture it in one of his paintings._   
_Her family. She misses them so much, every single one of them, and she's surprised how much it hurts her to be away from them._

"It's getting too dark, we should probably head outside." Kai's voice snaps her out, so she looks at up to catch his look and she nods, picking up her water bottle and walks inside.

_That night, she dreams about her family._   
_She dreams about her family waiting for her in Winnipeg._   
_She tries to forget about the dream, forget about the feeling that this time it's the right dream and the right direction and the right route, she does, because she's lost hope._

_She hasn't, no, she still has hope, hope that her family is still alive._   
_No, she has lost faith in herself and her feelings._

But he notices something is wrong with her, she's been a bit off, so he comforts her while they're cooking lunch together.

"Hey, little red, you can tell me whatever is on your mind. I promise I won't judge."

" _Nothing_ is on my mind. Keep your eye on-"

"Come on. It's okay." The way he says, how sincere and trusting he says, it just makes her break.

_Maybe it's simply because she's had enough, or that he's the only one she has left, they're the only ones-_   
_She feels her eyes watering, a lump in her throat is forming and she shelters herself, crossing her arms... She can't cry in front of him._

"Shit. Red, what happened?" He asks, leaving the sauce to cook as he comes to get closer to her, but she takes a step back. He stops in his steps and breaks down in cries.

"I had a dream. About my family. Again. I had the same pull towards Kansas City and now I have it towards Winnipeg."

"Winnipeg? In Canada." She nods. "Alright, then we go to Canada."

She sighs at that. "You don't get it." He gives her a questioning look. "I don't trust myself with my instincts anymore. Not since when Kansas turned out to be a fail. I can't be hurt anymore."

"Come on, red. Intuition is a powerful thing, trust it. Trust yourself."

_"Stop calling me red! I have a name! You don't get! I can't! I can't trust myself not to be hurt and lose this little hope inside me I have left!"_ She screams at him, which makes her cry even more, and then she's shaking in tears, unable to stop crying, not even registering that he called her by her real name, walking towards her.

"Hope." He says, making her look up at him and she tilts her head up high to meet his eyes _(he's so much taller than her)_ , and it's like everything else is gone, but them.

_It probably is._

  
_"Hope." He says again and she catches the look in his eyes. He wipes the tears from her face, touch so incredibly gentle, but his hands stay cradling her head._

_"Kai." She whispers. He tilts her head up higher as his look goes down and he's leaning down-_

_His lips find hers, his thumb on her chip slowly getting her to let his tongue meet hers in a slow waltz._

_In that moment, it's as if everything else is gone, but them. She thinks, she could be okay with that._


	2. I will not ask you, neither should you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the version set in canon.

_Zombie apocalypse outbreaks._ _It's a virus, an epidemic and it crosses continents in a a matter of days, less than a week, so there's no safe place to hide, to go, to ran away to._ _It starts in the USA. Of course it does. It happens in New York, first. Then it spreads all over the country, all over the continent, across the ocean, and it's soon all over the planet._

_When the words of the virus outbreak come, she's in Salvatore's, while her family is all over the country (or ocean, she's uncertain and the locator spells don't work anymore, despite anything she tries)._ _She goes to New Orleans, they're supposed to meet there, it's a safe place, it's home of the Mikaelsons, they'll be safe there._

_But New Orleans is caught by the virus too, but as she's halfway there, she decides to continue down her route, to her destination. By the the time she comes, the once beautiful city (her city) is ruined, ran by zombies and her family is nowhere near found._

_She searches every inch of the city, but she doesn't find any remnants of her family. She can't reach them either._   
_So she travels back to Mystic Falls, back to Salvatore's._

_The safest places are the small towns, she has found out during her journey._   
_She kills so many of those already dead. But they don't really die. It seems like they can't die._   
_Kind of like her family (but even some Mikaelsons are dead, aren't they?)._

_By the time she returns, Salvatore's has become the sanctuary for the survivors of the Mystic Falls._   
_Jeremy Gilbert is there. Bonnie Bennett is there too. Sheriff Donovan. Valerie Tulle is there as well, somehow._   
_Professor Saltzman, Caroline, Josie and Lizzie. The rest of student body and faculty members._

_Apparently the twins and the zombie apocalypse, somehow, in some magical way, let their murderous uncle out of his prison world. She doesn't bother listening, or what happened to him, or even bothering to catch his name._

_She's too caught up trying to do every single locator spell ever written._

_Damon and Elena die. They're turned into zombies and they die._ _Their children are kept safe in Salvatore's._

_Together, they all protect the school from zombies. Vampires, witches, werewolves, humans... They all join forces, trying to protect this stupid school. Not that magic and supernatural world is worth anything nowadays._   
_There's a set of rules._   
_Believe it or not, she follows them. She finally follows the rules and all it took is a zombie apocalypse._

_The atmosphere in Salvatore's is..._   
_It's dark, uneasy, unsettling and so many more adjectives she won't bother listing._

_Too many of the survivors don't keep their name, a survivor._   
_Far too many._

_She keeps trying to contact her family, anyone, but no use._   
_She keeps to herself, not really talking to anyone She mostly paints. It helps with keeping her mind off everything._

_Not that anyone actually talks with each other much, either._

_She gets a call from Kansas, she can't pick it up (no signal), and she concludes it must be her family._   
_She dreams about her family, dreams about Kansas City and her family in it, calling her, searching for her. Something like a magnet is pulling her towards Kansas City, like a call from the destiny._

_She makes the plan, takes the ammo and packs up her bags, finds an atlas with all the roads mapped out and runs away from Salvatore's._   
_She doesn't tell anyone, doesn't even say goodbye, but she does leave a note saying how she's gone to look for her family._

_She goes alone on the search for her family. Mikaelsons don't need help, they're each others's help._

_She breaks into the houses, learns how to sleep during the nights with one eye open._  
 _She kills the zombies, comes close one far too many times for her liking, so she changes the route._  
 _It's safer to go to the route to Chicago, there's probably survivors there (it is_ _Chicago), and from there on, she'll continue onto Kansas City._

_It's lonely._   
_Driving, breaking in, nights spent alone..._   
_It's so incredibly lonely, and she's alone with her thoughts._

_But she does get to read so many books, from autobiographies to erotica. Books help, with the thinking and rethinking._  
 _She's been lonely so many times before, but this,_ _this is something else entirely._

_She doesn't want to think about the dead. She can't._   
_She can, she's not heartless, she never was, despite what -_   
_She keeps her mind occupied with surviving and surviving and surviving-_

_She's a Mikaelson and a Labonair through and through, she has survival coursing through her blood and it's cut into her bones._   
_So she has no doubt her family survived too._   
_It's the only thing that keeps her going._

_Strangely, she thought about suicide couple of times before, and now, now that she's got nothing, it barely crosses her mind._

_She's alone, but she survived. If she survived, then so did her family, so did others._  
 _She doesn't let herself think of another option._ _Because it is not an option._

  
_So she reads, drives and breaks into houses when she runs out of supplies or feels the sleep creeping onto her._

_She comes to Chicago._   
_After twenty-something days, she finally reaches the bloody Chicago-_   
_and bloody it is. The rotten smell of death and bodies and zombies is in thick in the air._   
_She doesn't get the signal anywhere. So she raids the houses instead._

_It's a pretty house. She likes the interior. The owners were loaded. She finds pretty jewelry, designer clothes, expensive cutlery._   
_She doesn't let herself to look at the photos. She's had time to practice it, and now, she barely even notices the faces. It's easier that way._   
_She also like the car very, very much. The gas tank is full, too._   
_She raids other houses in the neighborhood, packs up ten bags, puts them in the car._   
_She takes a shower in the pretty, luxurious bathroom, enjoying the feel of cleansing of expensive soap._

_She puts on the pretty clothes of the daughter of the owners, who was exactly her size and goes back to the pretty car._

  
_She starts the engine, when she feels a hand clasp her mouth and a cold, sharp metal against her neck and she lets out a scream, but the hand is muffling her screams. She tries to wiggle, but the metal (knife, it's a knife) grazes her skin and so she stops, staying frozen, staying numb._

"Good girl. You catch on quickly, don't you?" She hears a voice, voice belonging to a young man. She looks into the rear-view mirror and sees a handsome, black haired young man, with a grin on his face. "I'll let you go, if you promise not to scream. Understood?"  
She slowly nods and he lets her go.

_It's a moment of silence, she's in shock - she hasn't spoken to another human being in weeks, a human being who just nearly cut her throat-_

"I didn't know there are other survivors in this area." He speaks up. He's looking at her, eyes narrowed, analyzing, trying to figure out who she is and how she survived.

"There aren't. I'm not from around here." She says, defiant and bold, but still cautious, hands at the steering wheel, knuckles white, looking at him into the mirror.

"Where are you from, then?" There's a hint of an amusement on his face.

"Look, there's a lot of other cars you can take, alright? I'll even tell you the address of this one survivor camp, and we can both go on our merry ways."

"What if I like being alone?" He asks, tone low, teasing her.

"Take the bags, I have more than enough." She sounds as if she's pleading him and that catches his interest.

"What's the hurry?" He asks, eyes lingering over her.

"I just... I'm on a tight schedule, and I'm already way late-" _god, she sounds so weak, her father would be disappointed-_

"I got no plans, no final destination." His voice lingers and he's proposing to team up, he's offering her his help.

"I don't need your help." She's getting angry and he notices, despite her best efforts, and his grin grows wider.

"I'm not offering you my help. It's a long way down-", he looks to the map, sees the circled Kansas City and raises an eyebrow, "-to Kansas City? Especially if you plan on passing through Naperville. I know my way around this area, I'd gladly lead you through it. You can't go through that war zone alone."

"I'll manage. But thanks."

"Alright, have it your way. Sorry for trying to help a damsel in distress." She scrunches her nose at that, her bile pulsing and her aggravation turns anger, which he notices and changes the subject. 

"What's in Kansas City, little red?" He asks, curious.

"None of your concern. Now get out of my car." She shrugs him off instead of answering.

"Alright. Have it your way." He shrugs nonchalantly. "Interesting book, by the way." He notes with that grin of his, as well as a wink, as he gets out of the car.

_She starts the car, not giving him a second look, and drives away._

_She drives for...maybe half an hour, when there's a horde of zombies ambushing her, tearing the pretty car apart, screaming so loudly that her head might explode._   
_She kills half of the them, more than it is unnecessary or needed to drive through the horde._

_Her pretty, new clothes are ruined, now dirty with their blood and their virus._   
_She sighs, drives to the nearest house to change clothes to burn her new pretty, pretty clothes._

_It seems quiet enough, so she comes in, doesn't even bother checking other rooms and goes straight to the shower._   
_She takes the other clothes from the bag, goes into the bedroom, thinking how she could use some more pretty clothes-_

_She finds a woman, a zombie woman (it's just a zombie now, remember) infected with a virus, and she goes in for a scream, but a hand that clasps her mouth muffles the screams and the woman is shot dead. She goes in for another scream, but that hand is still muffling her screams-_

"Goddamn it, red, do you know anything else than to scream?" The voice is familiar, the hand is familiar too, and so she turns around, finding herself face to face with him. 

"You killed her." She states, voice low and hoarse from screaming.

"You're welcome." He replies, sarcastic.

"She wasn't going to hurt me." Her voice is cracking, although she's trying to control it-

"Yes, she was. They're zombies. Infecting others is their only goal. So, you're welcome, little red. By the way, I saw what you did to those on the road. You aren't a saint."

"Then you know I can take care of myself." He gives her a look and goes into the bedroom, searching through the wardrobe and the nightstand. She turns around, realizing what he said. "Have you follow me?"

"Yes. I knew you'd end up dead without my help, so I decided to be a gentleman and help you out."

"Yeah, a creepy stalker being a gentleman. I'm so thankful." Her voice doesn't come across as sarcastic as much as she wanted it to, considering she's still swallowing her tears, she's still trembling and in shock.

_She feels magic coursing through her veins, through her blood, needing to be released, but doing it now, it isn't a good idea, it never is._

"I just thought it'd be a shame for human race to lose yet another member to zombies." He says as he finds a lighter and tries it, seeing if it works.

"How noble."

"The path from here is a bit clearer. I won't come to save you anymore if you don't want me to." He's being cheeky and if it were any other day, _any other time,_ she'd flirt, but right _now_ , _she needs to find and go back to her family._

"Then goodbye." She says and walks out of the bedroom. He goes out and she can hear him flipping the lighter.

She looks at him from inside. He has headphones and he's dancing around the fire. She'd laugh at him, if she wasn't _\- no Hope, not now-_

_Having someone by her side while she travels could prove to be useful and a very good idea, despite how much his grin makes her want to shoot him on the spot._

_Despite how much something magnetic is pulling her towards him._

_She can't describe the feeling, if it's magic, or simply intuition._

_Or a magical magnetic pull, two supernaturals left alone in a world where they can't fight with magic and powers anymore, where none of that matters at all._

_She changes into new clothes, comes outside and sees him reading her book while singing softly along the music from his player._

"Alright, I'll do it." Her voice snaps him out of reading and he looks up from Esther's grimoire, eyebrows raised and the look he has has her infuriated. He plans on teasing and getting a rise out of her, the cheeky bastard.

"Do what?" He asks, a playful, innocent grin on his face.

"I'll team up with you. Until we come to Kansas City, then we go our separate ways. Deal?" He closes the book, grin growing wider and he shakes her hand.

"Deal." He says, sending her a wink and goes to the driver's seat.

"Oh no you don't. I'm the driver." She says and he sends her a seriously look.

"Fine. I call shotgun then."  
 _They drive for three hours when they reach another horde._  
 _He's been talking non-stop, literally, he didn't keep his mouth shot for more than a minute and she decides she'll stick to her original plan._

  
_She doesn't need company if it means he'll keep asking her stupid, meaningless questions and pry into her privacy._

_This is zombie apocalypse, you don't make friends here._

_So when they reach the horde, she decides to leave him alone to fend for himself._   
_And what she decides, she does, she does it like a Mikaelson._

_She helps him kill three zombies (hey, she's not that heartless, alright?), than she gets into the car, starts it and leaves him behind before he even realizes what has just happened._

_She feels bad, yes, horribly, horribly bad for leaving him alone, but he can take care of himself, she's seen what he's capable of, he's a vampire after all, so she's not worried. Just... feeling a bit bad, that's all._

_She finally drives in silence, in peace, for an hour, before she reaches the old gas station._   
_She fills up the gas tank (better safe than sorry), goes to the toilet and into the store._

_Something feels off about the store and she has her hand ready on the gun. She searches it, thoroughly, but finds nothing, nobody. But the feeling that somebody is watching her doesn't go away._

_She blames it on her magic going whirlwind from not using it for so long, because she has learned zombies are drawn to it. She prefers knives and guns, now._

_She doesn't, nothing can measure up to the feeling of completing a spell and the magic coursing through you. But she has to survive and using magic isn't an option unless she wants to die._

  
_She picks up a chocolate bar and walks outside, when she's frozen in her step by a gun cocking at her head._

"You thought you'd get rid of me so easily, huh, little red?" He asks, taking the chocolate bar out of her hand but still not moving the gun pointed at her head.

"You were getting annoying."

"I was trying to make conversation, getting to know you. Isn't that what real people do?"

"We're in a zombie apocalypse. Real people rules don't apply anymore." He scoffs at that, taking a bite of her chocolate bar.

"Honestly, little red, I was a little disappointed in the way you left me. I thought we were making a connection."

"Get that gun away from my head and I'll show you a connection." Her tone is harsh and he wolf-whistles, amused.

"Aren't you just the perfect stereotype feisty redhead, huh? But I'm thinking something along the way, you apologize, beg me for forgiveness on your knees and let me drive for the whole trip." Now it's her time to scoff. "I'm not joking now, red."

She looks him in the eyes, and she recognizes the look. _It's the same as hers._ So she takes a deep breath and nods. "Fine. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. A bit louder, please?"

She glares at him, speaking loud and angry. "I said, I'm sorry to leave you out there alone and I beg you to forgive me."

"Oh, well thank you. Apology accepted. Now the other part?" She rolls her eyes.

"I'll let you drive the whole trip. Good?" 

He shrugs. "Satisfying. You could've at least kneeled." He says, putting the gun away and she reconsiders punching him, but decides against it.

"You would've loved that, wouldn't you?"

"You have no idea, little red." His grin is wide and she gets another wink and she might have chuckled at that. Might have a bit chuckled. Might _(yes she did)._

_They drive for three hours. He drives her car for three hours._   
_The magnetic pull towards Kansas City, that feeling in her gut, doesn't leave her, but it's a bit different now._

_Magic or no magic, she needs to go to Kansas, she has to be in Kansas._

_They finally reach it, she finally comes to Kansas City, but it's nothing._   
_It's like any other city before, like a wasteland._

"It's a wasteland, baby. I gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed. You?" They're standing outside the car and she's trying to figure it out-

_Was she wrong? Was her magic wrong? Was she so stupid, so naive to think her family would call and survive?_

_But they're the Originals, they can't be killed by a zombie virus, a stupid virus, can they? No, no, no, no, they can't._

_But they could've used magic, they could've done anything, they would do everything to let her know they're okay, wouldn't they? Shouldn't they? Always and forever-_

_She feels herself breaking down inside and outside, but pulls herself together, at least outside._   
_She takes deep breaths, not daring to look at him, just... starring at the distance._

"We could raid the houses. Figure out where to go next. What do you say, red?"

"Sure." She knows he notices how she's breaking down, but he doesn't mention it.

"Chin up, little red, you're gonna love going on all the road trips with me."

"Yeah." She swallows the lump in her throat and nods, offering him a forced smile.

They drive through the city, and they pass the hotel, and she gets this _déjà vu._

They come into the hotel, raid the rooms, but she finds nothing. _Nothing._  
 _Shit._  
They go back to the car and he's driving it, while she's looking through the window, _thinking and thinking and rethinking and crying inside herself._

"Where to now, princess?" She barely hears him ask.

"Anywhere but here." She answers and he nods.

"Yeah, good call. Let's road trip this wasteland country, huh? What do you say about that, red?"

"It sounds like a good idea."

"Duh. Of course it does, it came from me. I'm the king of good ideas." She's not sure why, but it makes her chuckle.

_They fall into silence, well, she falls into silence, he's the one singing animatedly to the CD in the car._  
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about whatever you were expecting to find in there."

"Thanks." _Another ABBA song comes and he exclaims that he loves this song so much (which he said for every other song of theirs) and he gets her to sing the stupid song with him._

_They drive through Wyoming, stopping at a small town to sleep._

_She cries herself to sleep that night, her silent, choking cries mixing with the screams of the zombies and his soft snoring._  
 _They continue through Idaho and Utah. He tells her to help him follow the roads in the atlas for Portland._  
"Portland, Oregon? What's there?" There's something dark in his look, a word left unsaid, before it's replaced by his playful smirk.

"We'll just have to see, won't we?" She offers him a short, lazy smile, letting the subject go.

_It's not as if she has anywhere else to be, right? What is she going to do, go back to Mystic Falls, where everybody else is probably dead by now?_   
_They come to Oregon and they have to stay over for a night before they can come to Portland._   
_Night is over, then it's another day, and they pick their bags and walk into the sunlight, towards a new place and new houses and apartments to break into._   
_They aren't going to nowhere specific, not really, not with a goal, they're just... walking aimlessly, trying to survive._   
  
_They reach Portland and something in the air shifts. She can't explain it, but..._   
_He's different when they come to Portland. He drives them to the field and she can see a house._   
_She looks at him questioningly._

"We'll be safe here for some time, until we can reach other survivors." He gets out of the car and goes into the house.

She walks after him, taking in everything about it. She notices how familiar he is with this house, and she sees a photo of a young teen who looks like him.

_This was his home, once upon a time._

She sees a photo of him and Jo, Jo the Josie and Lizzie's bio-mom and her body freezes at the realization. He's Kai Parker, he's the murderous, psychopathic uncle that escaped the prison world. He's a heretic.

_How did she not notice that before? How has she not recognized him before?_

_She acts like nothing happened, acts like he's still an insufferable asshole and not the twins's uncle._ _Which he is, by the way, an insufferable asshole._

_They organize who's going to clean which part of the house, and when they're done, they each go into their rooms._   
_She's not sure which room she got, whose room, which sibling of his did it belong to before the apocalypse?_   
_In the morning, she's woken up by the sound of cooking, music and an appetizing smell of eggs and bacon._

  
_She walks down the stairs and finds him cooking and dancing._   
_They eat breakfast together, then they go their separate way before it's time to cook lunch._   
_They cook together._

  
_It helps her forget where and why they're actually here, who either of them actually is._  
 _She cleans some more, cleans up other bedrooms, because it helps her keep her mind of everything._ _By the time night comes, she has found old board games, so they choose Monopoly. She wins._

_Again and again and again and-_   
_She doesn't know how long they stay in that house, how long they've been in his house._

_He's a vampire, he needs to feed, and what is left of animals isn't enough._

_She sees the question in his eyes, and before he asks or simply feeds on her by force, she offers him her hand._

_"There." She says and he looks at her, barely a moment, but they share a look, and then his fangs and lips are on her and they're drawing blood and she moans from the sensation._

_She notices he eats jam with his fingers. What kind of a sociopath does that?_   
_He can kill as much as humans and witches and vampires and zombies as he wants, fine, okay, she's done it too, by now, it's not a sign of being a bad person (her moral compass broke a long time ago)._

_She almost forgot he killed his twin sister and tried to kill his nieces, for a moment._

_It's not as if her father hadn't done way worse for far too longer._

_But still. E_ _ating jam with his fingers? That's where she draws the line._

_She also notices that he reminds her of her father._   
_She's not really sure why, and how she came to comparing those two, but now it's in her mind and she can't wipe it out._   
_Living with him, (god, who knew she'd ever live with a guy in a house in a field), it's... It's okay. It would probably be a nicer experience if they didn't live in an apocalyptic world, but..._   
_Some days it's good, some days it's for worse._

_They both carry their own demons, their own problems and thoughts and it's not as if seeing each other every single day is helping with not annoying each other._

_But overall, it's okay. Way better than it would be to be alone._   
_At least with him by her side, she isn't losing her mind and crying all the time._

_He's fun. He's fun and so it's way better than what she would do by herself._   
_Few times, they hot-wired cars and Fast and Furios-ed the highway. She enjoyed it way too much._

_Living with him is okay._   
_The days are okay._

  
  
_Nights, she thinks, are the worst._   
_There's either silence (like in his house) or the footsteps and screams of the dead (like in the houses she used to spend the nights)._   
_She's not sure which one she prefers._   
_Silence is suspicious and it give you a false sense of security and normality. It offers you thinking, your imagination starts working and that's not a good idea, especially not in these times._

_Your mind goes everywhere, to the good and bad and horrible and sad places, which makes you go mad._   
_Noise is good, in the way that it doesn't let you forget why you are where you are, what is actually happening._   
_Noise keeps you on your toes._   
_Noise makes you ready to fight, ready for action, which is a matter of the uttermost importance._

_Noise doesn't give you time to think. You're focused on the sounds, focused on figuring out how close the zombies are to where you're hiding._

_She keeps beating him in Monopoly, it's getting a bit sad, rather than it being funny._   
_She lets him win once and he doesn't let her forget it._   
_So they switch to puzzles. Nobody could possibly get angry doing puzzles, right?_

_They watch sunsets and sunrises together. Or sometimes, they stargaze (when they're feeling reckless, because even at the field, despite how safe this house might be, zombies are getting hungrier and hungrier each passing day)._

_Mostly they do it in silence._

They're watching the sunset this time, when she decides to break the silence.

"This feels like prison." She shares her observation with him. He doesn't say anything, but his face falls into a slow question. "You can't go outside much, without somebody looking to hurt you, you're keeping to yourself or finding the group who could protect you. Like prison."  
She elaborates and he still doesn't say anything, but he looks into the distance, contemplative, not saying anything. It's an odd moment, which passes, after a long silence.

"It's not like prison." It's all he says, something somber in the way he says those words is what makes her heart drop.

"You were in prison?" She asks and she's taken aback by that. She looks at him, hoping he doesn't notice how fake she sounds, _that he doesn't notice she knows about him_. He catches her eyes with his and all the thoughts she had go away.

"It's not the kind of prison you think of." He says, tone low and solemn, his eyes looking somewhere else, as if he's caught into a distant memory.

She sits there, at the porch, looking at him, her eyes wondering over him, trying to really look at him. He's starring into the distance, arms loosely crossed, wind going through his hair.

He's young, she realizes. He's incredibly young. She knew he must've been in his twenties, but she thought, probably mid to late. But he couldn't be more than twenty-two.

But his eyes are dark. His eyes are all kinds of wrong and right, sad and bad and good and misunderstood and regretful and they're so, so incredibly scary to look into sometimes _(there's two reasons why it's so scary, and it's for different reasons)._

He is also incredibly handsome. She knew that too, but looking at him like this, _really looking at him_ , with sun falling down and the way it hits him, making him even more handsome-

He'd be the perfect model to photograph, standing like that, the whole aesthetic, with the sun and his look and him, and she smiles at that, she might even let out a quick chuckle –  
 _because her mind went to Kai and professional photo-shoot and it's such a funny thing to imagine, because can you? Well she did and it's hilarious._

_They watch the dawn together, not talking, both lost deep into their thoughts._   
_It's a beautiful dawn, and she's unable to stop herself from her thoughts wandering to her family._

_Her father would probably want to capture it in one of his paintings._   
_Her family. She misses them so much, every single one of them, and she's surprised how much it hurts her to be away from them._

"It's getting too dark, we should probably head outside." Kai's voice snaps her out, so she looks at up to catch his look and she nods, picking up her water bottle and walks inside.

_That night, she dreams about her family._   
_She dreams about her family waiting for her in Winnipeg._   
_She tries to forget about the dream, forget about the feeling that this time it's the right dream and the right direction and the right route, she does, because she's lost hope._

_She hasn't, no, she still has hope, hope that her family is still alive._   
_No, she has lost faith in herself and her feelings and her magic._

But he notices something is wrong with her, she's been a bit off, so he comforts her while they're cooking lunch together.

"Hey, little red, you can tell me whatever is on your mind. I promise I won't judge."

" _Nothing_ is on my mind. Keep your eye on-"

"Come on. It's okay." The way he says, how sincere and trusting he says, it just makes her break.

_Maybe it's simply because she's had enough, or that he's the only one she has left, they're the only ones-_   
_She feels her eyes watering, a lump in her throat is forming and she shelters herself, crossing her arms... She can't cry in front of him._

"Shit. Red, what happened?" He asks, leaving the sauce to cook as he comes to get closer to her, but she takes a step back. He stops in his steps and breaks down in cries.

"I had a dream. About my family. Again. I had the same pull towards Kansas City and now I have it towards Winnipeg."

"Winnipeg? In Canada." She nods. "Alright, then we go to Canada."

She sighs at that. "You don't get it." He gives her a questioning look. "I don't trust myself with my instincts anymore. Not since when Kansas turned out to be a fail. I can't be hurt anymore."

"Come on, red. Intuition is a powerful thing, trust it. Trust yourself."

_"Stop calling me red! I have a name! You don't get! I can't! I can't trust myself not to be hurt and lose this little hope inside me I have left!"_ She screams at him, which makes her cry even more, and then she's shaking in tears, unable to stop crying, not even registering that he called her by her real name, walking towards her.

"Hope." He says, making her look up at him and she tilts her head up high to meet his eyes _(he's so much taller than her)_ , and it's like everything else is gone, but them.

_It probably is._

  
_"Hope." He says again and she catches the look in his eyes. He wipes the tears from her face, touch so incredibly gentle, but his hands stay cradling her head._

_"Kai." She whispers. He tilts her head up higher as his look goes down and he's leaning down-_

_His lips find hers, his thumb on her chip slowly getting her to let his tongue meet hers in a slow waltz._

_In that moment, it's as if everything else is gone, but them._

_She thinks, she could be okay with that._

**Author's Note:**

> I tried making it ambiguous, so a reader could pick if they're their canon selves, or humans, or whatever they decide. I have no idea if I managed, so let me know.
> 
> This was a hell to write.  
> But hey, at least we have our very first Kai/Hope fic, right? Hopefully not the last.


End file.
